Since the early days of launch, Zcash had a market price well above $2k per coin. Popularity/hype faded away and now it's sitting in the "double digits". With many improvements made on the network lately (like removing the need for a trusted setup, among others), ZEC should've been among the top ranks in market cap by now.
What happened? Do you think Zcash's downfall had to do anything with being a privacy coin? Or is it something else? Do you believe there's still hope for the project? Your input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

Its current price is 25$ something and previously it was about 56$+. It means that is less than half what it was before but looking at its total supply of 16,328,269 ZEC that is huge at the price it has now. And also has a better volume of 36,609,219 which is amazing with having listed on top-tier exchanges as well. And also I have seen in between some coins if it is listed at an Exchange like Binance we can expect from it that it will reach its height. It is also at Kucoin which is also the biggest Exchange.
So, I think it can reach to new ATH but it will take some time and all these coins will have some good news when the market is going to recover, these all depend on market conditions. Buying now may be risky at all.